Friday, August 13, 2010

The Ram and Scotty's Brewhouse during GenCon

Too Many Beers for the Spiral!

I regularly frequent the GenCon forums, so I knew that the Ram was again going to have a great setup for GenCon with a dark beer sponsered by Privateer along with a themed menu. It took about an hour to get a table, during which we all felt like we would die, but it was worth it! The first thing I ordered was the beer sampler. I wanted to change out the wheat beer for the Privateer brew since I do not enjoy wheat beers at all, but I wasn't able to sub out. I was a little bummed until our waitress offered to bring me a sampler of the Con beer in addition to the other beers. I knew things were going well. (see sampler in progress on the left with the wheat beer holding me up on the way to beer Nirvana with the final four beers.)

Yeah, that's Peanut Butter

Now that I had plentiful amounts of beer (and a glass of water, it was hot waiting), I was able to check out the menu. I don't really know the name of what I ordered except that it was a bacon cheeseburger with peanut butter. I had never heard of such a thing, so immediately decided to order it as it was the weirdest item I saw on the menu. I am very happy I ordered that burger. It hit the spot and the peanut butter was very good. I also enjoyed the fries as well. They do a good job of making the sides to the same high quality as the main dish.

Ah, Memories...

Food Always Wins...

After dinner we were only going to order one dessert (despite my request for two). That dessert would of course be the Mile High Mud Pie (seen on the left in the picture).

The waitress was able to convince us that the bread pudding was also amazing. I am highly skeptical of bread pudding normally, but once I was promised no raisins in my dessert, I wanted to give it a shot.

These desserts are huge! They are also the perfect compliment as the bread pudding has cinnamon and the mile high has mocha, making a great cinnamon roll/coffee combination. Unlike last year where we conquered the dual Mile High's (mint and mocha), we were unable to conquer these desserts; food won.

BEST COUPON EVER.

Later during the Con, a couple of us headed over to Scotty's brew House to try out the Fat Dragon Scotch Ale and see how the former manager of the Ram handled a new place for GenCon. Scotty's offered a free order of fried pickles when ordering two entres via a coupon found in the GenCon bag. (incidentally, one of the only worthwhile coupons in my opinion). They were, of course, delicious. Scotty's is a little off the main walkways of the Con, so we had a nice combination of gamers and non-gamers. Scotty's also has a ton of flat screens and a patio area that surpasses the Ram in every way.

Good Brew Indeed.

Of course, the main reason I go to these restaurants is to try out the Con beer. The Fat Dragon Scotch Ale was superior to the Ram's offering this year and very reminiscent of the Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale the Ram had a number of years ago. It does not quite top the Great Dane's Scotch Ale in Madison, WI, but it is still a fine beer. I later talked to the Fat Dragon guys and thanked them for choosing the Scotch Ale. It even led to a sale of their Modern City set and promises that I will post pictures of my Tomb of Horrors built primarily with .pdfs from their basic dungeon set after we play through it.

Booze + d6 = Awesome (math)

A nice benefit of Scotty's is the free die with any of the specially named Products sponsered by Green Ronin (I think). Each of us picked up a free die to remember Scotty's and remind us to check it out again next GenCon. So what did I eat other than pickles and beer? I ordered a pretzel sandwhich (appropriately enough, the word "monk" appeared in the name due to the pretzel). It was good and the pasta salad I ordered as the side was a nice change of pace from just having fries or onion rings at most places.

Not a mile high, but still good.

Finally, we ordered dessert (just one since there were only two of us). Again, we made an interesting choice that I normally avoid, German chocolate cake (no coconut). The toffee on the side along with a very nice cake and frosting combo hit the spot and ended a great late lunch, early dinner. We will try and hit up both places again next GenCon.

I appreciate your patronage, as well as all Gen Con gamers. It was a great weekend and I can't wait to see you all again next year. I hope you enjoyed our non-stop playing of sci-fi movies on all tv's, the 501st Legion of Storm Troopers guarding the Brewhouse, special gaming areas we had set up, Troll Lord Games and Fat Dragon Games designed/themed menus by Green Ronin Publishing and the big smile on Indy Dave's face. He was instrumental in pulling this all together for us. Again, we appreciate the kind words and look forward to hosting you again next year! -Scotty (owner)

Overall, Scotty's was worth the walk (or pedicab ride). I kind of felt like the Ram was phoning it in this year.

There were a couple of bumps I'm sure IndyDav will iron out before next year. Two out of three times my order was wrong (I ordered the burger with peanut butter and jalapenos, the Schewman, and asked for the jalapenos to be left off... both times I ordered it I ended up picking off a pile of jalapenos) and we didn't get our dice two of three days.

Saturday there was an annoyingly loud nerdcore rap group performing on the the patio that made conversation impossible.

On the plus side, having the 501st there was cool, we appreciated the nerd-friendly filmfest, the food was good and I love Scotch ale.